


Oceanography

by antioedipus



Series: A Different World [1]
Category: Naruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antioedipus/pseuds/antioedipus
Summary: The son pays for the father's crime, and the brother pays for the other's failings."His father always told Neji that he was stronger than Hinata, and that he was weak for not being born first. Wolves can’t be weak. The son always pays for his father’s failure."Neji becoming Neji.
Relationships: Hyuuga Hiashi & Hyuuga Hizashi, Hyuuga Hinata & Hyuuga Neji
Series: A Different World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895671
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Oceanography

"But I could see for miles, miles, miles"

Bon Iver, Holocene 

No matter the time of day or room, the light within the Hyuuga compound is always bright. Things become hyper-visible. That doesn’t even factor the constant threat of surveillance. For a clan with so many members, it is actually a very lonely place to be. Everyone is always watching each other, looking out for the traitor that does not exist but nonetheless, haunts the dreams of the clan head and the elders, justifying even closer scrutiny.

It is very quiet as well. None of the children scream or speak out of turn. Everyone is encouraged to pursue a quiet hobbies, like meditating or knitting or reading. The one crack Neji ever hears his father make to his uncle is that the reason it is called “Gentle Fist” is because the Hyuuga can’t tolerate the loud noises of big, showy blows. Neji is sure that his uncle laughed, but it might just be the delirium of memory. Maybe it isn’t even a memory at all, but a joke Neji made for himself; a little story that would have been really funny had it actually happened. It had to have been from before he met Hinata.

He is only a year older than Hinata, but they didn’t meet until her third birthday. She hides behind her mother’s skirts, and she peeks out at him with the same nervous curiosity of a particularly skittish cat. He thinks she is quite cute. _But not like that!_ She is an objectively sweet looking child. He smiles and waves, which makes her smile, even though she still clings to her mother’s clothes.

His uncle and father, identical twins, look strained. They are both smiling, but it isn’t real. Neji tugs on his father’s pants. His father, who at the time he still refers to as daddy (but only when it is just them two) looks down at him. Neji watches his father swallow back his tight smile.

“What is it, Neji?” It is barely a whisper, which makes Neji a little nervous, like something bad is just around the corner.

“She’s cute, don’t you think?” Neji bites his lip, and his father allows a real smile, although it is small and sad.

“That’s one way to think about her.” His father pats his head and looks back up at his uncle. They nod, and turn into the hall.

What no one tells Neji is that he is here to learn his place. Being sealed _hurts_. When he gets older, he realizes that there are ways to seal someone without hurting them, and he realizes that the Hyuuga seal is supposed to inflict pain. It is a reminder that you are descended from someone who was too weak to ensure that you would never bear this mark. In a sense, you are weak by association.

His father always told Neji that he was stronger than Hinata, and that he was weak for not being born first. Wolves can’t be weak. The son always pays for his father’s failure.

There are six months where they spend a lot of time together. From her third birthday to the following June, he practices with her. She isn’t as good as him, but she isn’t bad. Her greatest flaw is that she is timid, and it really doesn’t help when their respective fathers are watching. Her father has a sharp voice and his father has even sharper eyes, narrowing whenever she stumbles. She is incredibly perceptive; she sees everything too, but because she is slow compared to Neji, they treat her like she is stupid.

Neji doesn’t agree with them at all. She isn’t dumb, she is just scared. Berating her won’t make her braver, it will just push her further inward.

There is one session where her father is particularly cold, and Neji finds her sniffling outside the hall. Their fathers are doing their own training, so he slips out unnoticed. She sees him, and her eyes get real big, like two large pearls were stuck onto her face instead of eyes.

He doesn’t know why he does this, but he tells her that he loves her. He means it. She doesn’t even look surprised. She just smiles, and tells him that she loves him too.

Unbeknownst to either child, their fathers’ overheard their exchange. Hizashi looks at his brother, Hiashi, with sadness. Resentment is just another way to love, and it is the only way Hizashi feels comfortable telling his brother that he still loves him. Hiashi doesn’t take the bait, his way of showing his brother that he loves him, too. Hiashi remains blank, the way their father taught him to be when faced with an unpleasant truth. Both brothers hope that this is just a phase. It makes the seal worse, when the person you love wields it against you.

So they both hope Neji and Hinata adopt the dispassionate indifference between master and servant. When Hinata begins to bring Neji pressed flowers, it becomes clear that they haven’t learned anything and may make an even bigger mistake than their fathers.

Hizashi’s resentments no longer go unpunished, and they become increasingly malicious, until one day Hiashi actually uses the seal against his brother. His father crumples over, hand to his temples, screaming. Neji starts yelling _father, father, father_ , shaking his father’s arm. He doesn’t use daddy anymore, because his father told him that the seal meant he had to be man now. But in that moment of hot fear Neji doesn’t want to be a man and he doesn’t want father he wants _daddy to wake up, wake up please_. Neji looks to his uncle and Hinata. His uncle has her behind him, and he can hear her nervous chirps.

Under the stern gaze of his uncle, Neji realizes that this wasn’t to punish his father. This was to show Neji what Hiashi could do to him, and what Hinata would eventually do.

It was the first and only time Hiashi used it against his brother. It was his way of telling Hizashi that he chose his daughter over his twin; that he loves her more. It is the ultimate betrayal of all his late night promises that he would never, ever, _ever_ hurt his baby brother. Hizashi had squealed at the use of baby, because he was just as big as his brother. When he finally comes too, and sees the terror in Neji’s eyes and the apathy in his brother’s, Hizashi doesn’t bother saying anything about the depths of his anger; to have been lied to, to have been incapacitated like this in front of his son. Hizashi just swallows it all so that there is nothing left but the indifference of a beaten dog.

Beginning the summer after Neji was sealed, his father and uncle choose to avoid one another, which means he stops seeing Hinata. It’s better, this way. Neji doesn’t want to see his father, hands to his temples, screaming in pain. He doesn’t want to look up at his uncle, holding his hand at his forehead and Hinata behind him. She tried to peek, but Hiashi kept her head behind his legs. Neji is jealous. He knows that display was for him, but he has always wanted to ask why Hinata wasn’t permitted to look, since, presumably, it would be her job to do this to him one day. Neji doesn’t think his uncle would hurt a child, but he also thought that his uncle loved his father.

The last time he sees his father, he is leaning over Neji’s bed. Neji wakes up, eyes bleary. _Father_ , he exclaims, always happy to see him. _It’s just us_ , his father’s voice is quiet and deep, like the shadows of the deepest ocean. _You should call me daddy_. Neji chirps out _daddy_ , and begins to tell his dad all about the book he read about the ocean. _Do you know that we haven’t even seen most of it, daddy? That there will be some things so one will ever see, even if they have a byakugan? Imagine that, something imperceptible to a Hyuuga, daddy. Daddy, I want to explore the ocean when I grow up_.

Hizashi tears up, and Neji doesn’t understand until he is older. _He cried because there was so much about me that he was never going to see._ He had run out of time, like a deep sea diver, and was being rushed back up to the surface, to the sun, but so fast that he was going to die from the bends and never return.

His father spends an hour with him, and leans down to kiss his head, telling him to get some sleep, he has a mission and they won’t see each other for a while. Neji, naïve, tells his daddy to be safe, and that he should take one of the pressed flowers Hinata gave him. Neji actually gets out if bed and drags his dad to the book about oceans, which is where he keeps them. Hizashi is amazed by the sheer number of them. He knew it was Hinata’s hobby, and that his sister-in-law encouraged it, but he had no idea that she had done so much or that Neji received so many flowers. Contrary to what he knew to be for the best, Hizashi finds himself hoping that Neji and Hinata keep loving each other. _Maybe love will be possible for them_ , he thinks, sadly. He looks through it, and selects a lily of the valley, which Hinata’s mother had helped her wrap in teal rice paper.

His father tucks it into his shirt, and puts him back to bed with another kiss and a final _be careful, daddy_. Hizashi smiles, happy that his son doesn’t see a glimmer of what his father is about to do. Hizashi goes to the training hall, and with a gentle tap to a vital point, it is over.

When the body is undressed and washed, Hiashi looks at the pressed lily and the headband, unsure of what to do. Hiashi lays the lily on his brother’s greying chest, before the servants wrap him for transport. Hiashi holds onto the headband, and goes to wake Neji.

Neji, confused, asks _daddy_? Hiashi just shakes his head, and tells him that there was an incident, and his father is dead. _It was a noble sacrifice_ , Hiashi says, hating himself for the canned phrase and for having to watch a wailing Neji. Hiashi takes Neji, sniffling, to the wrapped body. Neji bounds over, to see this thing that was both and not his daddy. He cries, and shakes the stiff body. Hiashi gives Neji the forehead protector his father always wore on his brow. _Wear it when you grow up,_ his uncle says. Neji asks about his lily; _what happened to it?_ Hinata had given it to him. Hiashi frowns, turning to his wife. She is appalled by her husband’s callousness, but understands that it is because he thinks that being vulnerable is a weakness.

She picks Neji up, cradling him, telling him that his father took it with him, to remind him of Neji. She adds that, according to some sources, it means a “return to happiness”, and as she had explained earlier to Hinata, it is so pretty that fairies use its blossoms as a cup for their tea. _Your daddy will use the flowers to drink his tea, and every time he does, he will think of you_. Neji cries, clinging to her. It is unbecoming, but she carries him away from the hall and back to his room. She rubs his back until he stops crying and falls asleep.

When he wakes up the next day, and hears the whispers about his father’s death, Neji decides two things. It is just him now, and that he hates this whole family, especially the Main Branch. Most people would be surprised by how separate their childhoods were, following the death of his father, but Neji makes a point of ignoring all but mandatory summons. He glares at Hinata, and he is full of so much anger and hate, he actually likes how skittish she becomes around him.

Two years later, he wonders why it doesn’t feel like justice when her mother dies. It bothers him, so he decides to get rid of all reminders of his aunt. He leaves his book about oceanography outside Hinata’s room. It is the book he told his father about, and it is full of all the pressed flowers she gave him. He keeps the other lily in the valley, but he has not attachment to the rest of the flowers or the book.

He decides to forget about the ocean, and is shipped off to the academy shortly after. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the bummer. This has been sitting in my files for awhile, and it deserved to have a home. Stay safe out there!


End file.
